This publication seeks to correct a major weakness limiting the study of underwater archeological sites: a set of unquestioned assumptions regarding site-formation processes and data-set preservation. The subject of research, the Douglass Beach Site (8SL17), is a Florida east coast underwater site consisting of two components: an 18th century Spanish shipwreck located above an Archaic Period inundated terrestrial site. Douglass Beach Site research was aimed at generating principles of submerged site formation and alteration. The primary research was conducted over seven weeks in summer 1978.